When we are not conscious of our emotions, we live reacting to outside input.
Circumstances trigger automatic, unconscious responses, conditioned unconscious patterns and loss of choice. This corresponds to unhealed wounds from the past: we have identified with them, and therefore we don’t perceive them. So we end up considering them part of our "personality" and we don’t just feel our emotions, we become our emotions.
However, when we develop our capacity to observe our emotions, we can feel them without identifying with them or repressing them. Suffering happens when we identify with pain, and we are left without resources.
Due to automatic reactions to unconscious emotions, we have a very skewed point of view of facts and situations. Further, if we do something without being conscious, we'll do it the same way regardless of the situations, leading to rigidity. We are seeing only a part of reality.
To see the whole picture of reality, we need to be able to see our pain as well and avoid the "autopilot.”
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